When local food activist Harry MacCormack, an Oregon Tilth co-founder who pushed for national organic standards, saw that most of the beans and grains in the bulk bins at his Corvallis food co-op were imported, he decided to start an experiment. MacCormack threw 16 varieties of those seeds -- including pinto beans, quinoa and rye -- in the ground on his Sunbow Farm homestead just west of town. All but one of them (sesame seeds) grew.

"It was pretty obvious that we could have these things growing in this area and have a local food base," MacCormack says. He also preaches the need for emergency reserves given petroleum's uncertainty. "About 80 percent of a food system, no matter whether you're a vegetarian or a meat-eater, is going to have to be based in grains and beans."

MacCormack needed land to implement his vision. By chance he met Willow Coberly, wife of the owner of Stalford Seed Farms, a nearly 10,000-acre titan in neighboring Linn County, the grass-seed capital of the world. Coberly convinced her ryegrass-loving husband to plant garbanzo beans and wheat on a 145-acre organic plot she had started. And so about four years ago, the Southern Willamette Valley Beans and Grain Project was born.

Shortly after, the grass-seed market tanked with the global recession. Tom Hunton, who'd grown only grass seed since 1968, has planted 200 of his 2,500 Junction City acres with garbanzo beans, wheat and teff. On the brink of bankruptcy, fourth-generation A2R Farms in Corvallis now grows organic wheat, oats and flax, which Milwaukie-based Bob's Red Mill (whose own bread flour comes from Montana) grinds for NatureBake's new Oregon Grains bread.

Wheat ranks among Oregon's most valuable agricultural exports, and the state ships nearly 90 percent of it abroad. Eastern Oregon grows hard red wheat, which is favored for breads. But farmers thought that soft white wheat (for pancakes and pastries) was all that would grow in the wetter Willamette Valley. MacCormack and the project's champions have set out to prove grass-seed fields can yield abundant, no-spray wheat with enough protein content for a good knead. Oregon State University researchers said it couldn't be done.

The project's farmers have finally nurtured flavorful, hardier red varieties, at no small expense. Then it has to be milled. "Nobody wanted to buy whole-wheat berries," Coberly says. No local processors materialized, and she didn't want to surrender control to a corporate mill. The First Alternative Natural Foods Co-op in Corvallis stepped in, installing machines to grind your own flour.

The Stalford and Hunton farms have had the headache -- and expense -- of buying grindstones and securing permits to build their own facilities. Plus, Coberly has joined the Domestic Fair Trade Association and insists on paying her workers a living wage.

Now, Coberly's Greenwillow Grains flour, milled in Brownsville, is for sale at specialty grocers and used by bakeries and restaurants around Corvallis, Eugene and Salem. In Portland, Provvista distributes the flour to select wineries and restaurants, including the Intel campus cafeteria. Hummingbird Wholesale handles the Hunton Farm's beans and wheat, baked into a Bread Stop Bakery whole-wheat loaf found at local Fred Meyer, New Seasons and Whole Foods markets.

This is not all-purpose flour, with additives and conditioners. A 3-pound bag of the stone-ground flour sells for $5 to $6. The grind date is printed on the sacks, which should be used immediately, or refrigerated or frozen two weeks later to prevent rancidity.

"This is a live product," says Mary Ann Jasper, Greenwillow's sales director and Coberly's aunt. "It does not have a shelf life. It has not been nuked or gassed."

The bread flour, with only 12 percent protein, often requires bakers to tweak recipes with extra kneading. It lends itself to sourdough or other pre-fermented breads. Or it can be enhanced with a bit of vital gluten flour (75 percent protein) to improve the dough's elasticity. Greenwillow recently upgraded to a finer grind after bakers found the initial flour's coarseness difficult to knead.

The project's biggest challenge is lack of storage silos and how to coordinate three-year wheat rotations among the farmers. Some beans failed without enough days of dry heat last summer. Garbanzos flourished, so Hunton's still sitting on 25,000 pounds of them. Although he sells to the University of Oregon's cafeteria, he needs more institutional buyers.

Last season, the farmers grew more than 600,000 pounds of hard red wheat, in addition to a lot more white wheat. A fill-your-pantry event last fall encouraged shoppers to stock up on, say, 100 pounds of oats. MacCormack envisions 50-gallon storage drums throughout the community for food security. He's even encouraging people to buy the wheat right from the farm and store and mill it themselves.

Beyond the grass-seed veterans, the project now includes younger upstarts who are more focused on biodiversity than commodity. There are Sarah Kleeger and Andrew Still, who lease their 18-acre Open Oak Farm near Sweet Home. By growing heirloom varieties of rye, buckwheat and beans for a bulk CSA, they're trying to change local palates.

"People should learn to like rye and buckwheat, because they grow really well in this valley," Still says.